


He never went hungry

by LemmingDancer



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Brother Feels, Fluff without Plot, Gen, Implied/Referenced Underage Prostitution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-09
Updated: 2017-05-13
Packaged: 2018-10-29 20:26:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10861458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LemmingDancer/pseuds/LemmingDancer
Summary: Sam finds out why Dean eats like every meal could be his last, and how high a price he paid to protect Sam's childhood.





	1. Siblings

**Author's Note:**

> Set anywhere post season 3. It feels like it's early in the series, when the boys were younger and their relationship was less established. But I love Jody, so I may be bending the timeline a little to get her in there. Occasional profanity, definite mature themes. Probably a darker backstory for Dean than the show really warrants, but it's my head cannon nonetheless.

The kid handcuffed to the table can’t be more than 15. Sam Winchester has never met him before, but he seems familiar. The boy has a stack of un-brushed hair that’s somewhere between brown and blonde, and a smattering of freckles across a thin face. But it’s the way he’s sitting, draped on his chair in a slouch that’s both defiant and disinterested, that Sam almost recognizes.

“Any luck with the vamps?” Jody asks as she enters the room. She joins Sam at the one-way glass.

“None,” Same replies. He doesn’t look away from the interrogation room. “Abandoned convenience store was a bust.”

“Well, ‘John’ here might have seen them. He was in the area last night.”

“Why did you arrest him?”

Jody tchs against her teeth. “I didn’t arrest him. Two uniforms took a call about a mugging, brought the kid in as the ‘perp’.” She puts air quotes around the word. 

Sam’s eyebrows climb. “The kid weighs, what, 90 pounds, soaking wet?”

“They did find the guy’s wallet on him, but I’m guessing there’s more to this story. Trouble is, all I can get out of him is string of smart-assed jokes.” 

“Where’s Dean?” Sam asks, glancing into the main room of po-dunk-nowhere’s little station. Dean is their resident expert on smart-assery.

“Getting lunch.”

“Of course he is.”

The door to the interrogation swings wide and Dean enters, juggling paper bags and plastic cups. He looks back into the hallway, scanning left and right before shutting himself in the room with the boy. 

Dean doesn’t say anything to ‘John’ as he hooks another chair over to the table with his foot. He plops himself down and unpacks lunch, burgers dripping with grease and soggy fries, two of everything. With one final furtive glance at the door, he pulls a key out of his suit pocket and uncuffs the kid.

‘John’ rubs his wrist, studies the meal in front of him and then looks at Dean with slitted eyes. Dean has already buried himself in his food, his cheeks puffing like a squirrel as he stuffs fries into a mouth already full of burger.

Dean stops chewing. Sam can’t help but smile; he knows that look. “You gonna eat that?” Dean asks the kid.

The boy’s eyes narrow even further. “You think you can bribe me, old man? Think I’m going to spill my guts because you bought me a dollar-menu burger?”

“Do I look like I want to talk, kid?” Dean’s chewing again, turning his attention back to his food with an intensity he only manages for meals and machete fights.

At this, the boy’s head rocks back a bit. He eyes Dean for a moment longer, then drags his food closer. 

The room goes quiet, except for Dean’s too-loud lip-smacking and the whining slurp of soda from Styrofoam cups. Sam can’t help but wrinkle his nose at his brother’s eating habits, and the kid is worse. ‘John’ eats with both hands, washing down his food like a competitive eater. 

Jody shoots Sam a mystified look, and he can only shrug. “Dean’s good with kids,” he says, though he has no idea what Dean is doing.

“So,” Dean says after a while. “I’m guessing two days.”

“What?” John asks, apparently before he can catch himself. 

“Two days since you put anything besides water in your stomach.” Dean waves a fry at the boy’s rapidly disappearing food. 

The kid snorts but doesn’t stop eating. “What’s your excuse? You don’t look like you miss any meals.”  

“Old habits, I guess,” Dean says. He’s still focused on his food, but he’s slowing down.

The boy’s eyes are on Dean’s face. “Riiiiiight.” 

Sam shakes his head, he’s not buying it either. Things were tough growing up, but not that tough. 

Dean leans back in his chair and belches loudly.

“Gross, man.” The kid snickers into his burger.

“You sound like my little brother.” Dean stretches, and Sam can hear his spine popping even through the glass. Then Dean gets up and moves to boy’s side of the table. The kid leans away a little as Dean settles into the chair next to him. 

“Saved the best for last,” Dean says. He offers the boy a spoon and then produces an enormous, slightly melted ice cream sundae from the last bag. Together, they start shoveling soupy ice cream into their mouths. 

Sam shakes his head at Dean’s transparent ploy, but a bit more of the kid’s defiance is melting with each spoonful of sugar.

“I’m Dean, by the way,” Dean says around a mouthful.

“…I’m Mark.” 

Dean nods. He dips a fry into the ice cream, swirling it in fudge. “Yeah, my brother makes faces at the way I eat. He doesn’t understand. But then, he never missed a meal.”

Mark nods slowly, sucking his spoon as he stares at Dean. 

Sam flinches when Jody touches his arm, he’d almost forgotten her. He’s too busy studying his brother, looking for the lie in his face. And Sam knows he’s lying, he must be lying, trying to get the kid to trust him. The problem is, Dean usually doesn’t lie this well, at least, not to Sam.

“Siblings,” the kid, Mark, volunteers. He says it as if this explains everything.

“Exactly,” Dean agrees. 

Silence for a few bites.

“Who’s waiting for you to come home with groceries?” Dean asks.

Mark’s chin lifts and his lips thin. 

Dean tilts his head. “Four hundred bucks stuffed in your socks, but you haven’t eaten. Gotta be grocery money.”

A few more silent bites. Dean is carefully not looking at Mark.

“My little sister, Amy.” Mark says. His chin lifts a little more. “She’s never missed a meal either.”

Dean grunts. “I believe you.”

“I earned that money. I didn’t steal it. We need it back, and I…I earned it.”

Another grunt of confirmation. “I know. Stealing’s too risky, could get caught. Then who’d take care of Amy?”

Mark leans forward, catching Dean’s eyes. “Please. I _earned_ it.” He’s almost whispering now.

“I understand,” is all Dean says, but he smiles and it is such a bitter, knowing smile that Sam asks “How?” before he remembers they can’t hear him. 

Jody answers him instead. “You know, maybe we should leave them to this. I feel like I’m eavesdropping here.” 

Sam looks at her, sees sadness and something more in the tightness around her eyes. “It’s not eavesdropping; it’s an interrogation,” he says.

“Dean will catch us up on it later.” Jody’s tugging on Sam’s arm, and he names the emotion on her face: fear. That, and Dean’s lying/not lies about growing up hungry keep Sam rooted to the spot.

Mark is glaring at the top of table, arms crossed over his chest. “You can’t possibly understand.”

“I do. Hey, look at me,” Dean waits until Mark manages to meet his eyes. “You do what you have to do to protect your family. Whatever you have to do. I. Understand.”

“You? But you’re like seven feet tall, and strong, and…?” 

Now it’s Dean’s turn to look away. He stabs his spoon into what’s left of the ice cream and leaves it standing there. He rubs one hand across his mouth then puts both palms flat on the table, as if bracing.

“We really should go,” Jody says one more time, but Sam shushes her.

“Yeah well. I was a scrawny kid,” Dean says. “Mom was dead, Dad was not around, and Sammy was going to want dinner when he got home from school. And I was hungry. Just so goddamn hungry.”

Dean stops and the room is silent, until the silence takes on a life of its own, coiling around them all. Sam embraces it, hoping the silence will drown out his racing thoughts. 

“Yeah?” Mark asks.

“Yeah. I mean…what else was I supposed to do?” Dean looks at the kid, a 15-year-old who shouldn’t have an answer to a question like that.

“There’s nothing else you could do.” Mark nods once, sharply, as if he’s had this argument with himself a thousand times already. 

The silence between them is different now; shared experience drifts back and forth in it. 

“We were just lucky ‘I’ve got a pretty mouth’.” Dean spits the last few words like they taste bad.

Something breaks loose in Sam, and it has jagged edges. Suddenly he's not sure of anything, except that nothing will ever be the same. 


	2. Disgust

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are seven chapters in this fic, each about the same length. It is completely written. I'm posting nightly, as I tend to spend HOURS pouring over every individual word before I click that "Post" button. Enjoy!

The edges of the room start to blur, and Sam realizes he's holding his breath. He forces himself to inhale. He couldn't look away from the interrogation room if the apocalypse were to start in the room behind him.

“Did they…your brother and your Dad…did they ever figure out where the money was coming from?” Mark asks Dean.

“They never even wondered.” Dean’s eating ice cream again. “I’d rather put a gun in my pretty mouth and pull the trigger than explain to Sam.”

Mark accepts this with a grunt, but his eyes are still asking a question.

“Dad….” Dean begins. “I didn’t want him to find out, not really. But…it would have been nice if, I dunno. If he’d noticed that something wasn’t right. That I wasn’t alright.”

Mark nods slowly. “Maybe it’s true, what the pervs say about….about us.” His voice has climbed an octave.

“Dude, they’re pervs. They don’t get to have an opinion of us.”

Mark’s lips twitch in something like a smile, but it’s gone before it touches his eyes. “But. It feels true. I mean, I feel…I feel like trash, sometimes.” He has to swallow a couple of times, but somehow, he manages to meet Dean’s eyes again.

“Yeah,” Dean says without looking away. “Yeah, it feels true.”

When Mark’s head falls onto his folded arms and he starts to cry, Dean doesn’t try to comfort him, doesn’t hug him. He leans forward, putting his folded arms on the table beside Mark’s, so their elbows are just touching. 

“It feels like you could take a bath in bleach and still come out smelling like shit,” Dean says. He’s staring at the one-way glass now, straight at Sam hidden on the other side, but he’s seeing something else. The memories playing out behind his eyes make his lips twist.

 _I’ve got a pretty mouth_ echoes in Sam’s ears. His throat tightens, and he tastes bile.

Dean leans his shoulder against Mark’s. “It feels like all that crap is true, but it isn’t.”

“But maybe I really am...just…just a filthy little whore. Maybe I don’t deserve better, and…”

“Dude, listen. It feels that way, but it isn’t true. It can't be.” 

“But…how do you know?”

“I know, because you have Amy. And I have Sammy.”

Mark doesn’t lift his head, but he turns his face towards Dean.

“I bet Amy is smart,” Dean says. “And good, sometimes the only really good thing in your life.”

A tiny nod from Mark. 

“Yeah, Sammy too. And it just doesn’t add up. There’s no way we can be bad enough to deserve all this shit, and good enough to have them.”

“Really?” 

Dean pauses, visibly thinking. “Yeah, I think so.” He sounds almost surprised.

Mark pushes himself off the table and buries his snotty face in Dean’s shoulder. Dean folds him into his arms and holds on while the kid cries himself out, more like a five-year-old than a teenager. Sam has the urge to bury his head somewhere too, to let someone stronger than him hold together his rapidly collapsing world. 

“Can you tell me what happened?” Dean asks, when Mark has calmed down a little.

“Was jus’ suppose’ to be a BJ,” Mark says into Dean’s shoulder.

“Perv wanted more than what was on the menu?” Dean guesses, and the explanation comes to him easy, too easy. Sam doesn’t realize he’s made a sound until Jody’s hand on his arm tightens.

“I made a lot of noise, and people came running…the asshole shoved his wallet down my pants and started screaming, like I was the one trying to screw him.”

“Asshole,” Dean agrees. 

“So I ran, but I crashed into these two…these two guys I guess…they were pissed. They grabbed me, but when the cops showed up, they booked it.”

“Did you see which way they went?”

This is the part Sam should pay attention to, this is the info relevant to the hunt. But his mind is replaying _I’ve got a pretty mouth_ over and over. He has never wanted to un-hear something more than in this moment. 

“Sam?” Jody asks. Sam thinks she’s probably been asking for awhile. 

Sam lurches over to the trashcan and folds to his knees over it, throwing up stale coffee until his stomach is wringing in dry heaves. When those finally stop, he still feels sick. 

“Sam, you have to pull yourself together,” Jody says. She’s using her Mom voice.

“He’s lying,” Sam tells her, wiping his face on the back of his hand. He leans back, the flimsy faux-wood paneling bows as he leans on the wall.

“Who’s lying? Jesus Sammy, what happened to you?!” And then Dean is there on one knee by Sam, producing a handkerchief that smells like the engine of the impala. 

Sam wipes his face with it anyway. “Tell her. Tell Jody you were just getting the kid to trust you.”

Understanding and suspicion chase each other across Dean’s face, rippling his eyebrows. “How long have you been listening?”

Sam can’t answer, can’t even look at Dean, but Jody winces. It’s enough of an answer.

Dean stands, straightening one vertebrae at a time. He’s looking down on Sam now, his lips tight. _I’ve got a pretty mouth_ Sam hears again. 

“No,” Sam says.

Dean just shakes his head. His eyes move to Jody. 

“Mark saw our two vamps headed towards the rail yard. Good place for a lair, lots of people coming and going, people who wouldn’t be missed. It’s messed up, but that asshole calling the cops probably saved the kid’s life.”

Jody blinks at Dean. Sam can see her mentally shoving aside the elephant in the room. They have a hunt, a job. _Saving people, hunting things…I’ve got a pretty…_

 _And who saves us?_ Sam wonders. There was no one there for Dean, when he needed saving. No one except Sam, and Sam hadn’t seen…hadn’t even wondered what his brother did, to keep food on the table.

Dean looks back at Sam again. His chin is jutting out, and Sam knows a smart ass comment is coming before his opens his mouth… _I’ve got a pretty…_

“So,” Dean says. “You want a divorce?”

“I…I can’t believe…How could…”

Dean cuts him off by grabbing his collar and hauling him to his feet. “You don’t get to judge me. You never missed a meal.”

“That’s not…” Sam sags against the wall when Dean pushes him away. 

“I’m going to see the District Attorney, see if I can Fed him into dropping the charges. This kid shouldn’t go to jail for nearly getting raped.” Dean is already leaving. 

“You take the vamps,” he orders without turning around. And then he’s gone.


	3. Bait

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seriously, one more warning for language and dark themes, and I'll add a mild violence warning. This may just be too dark for these characters, I'm aware. It's my attempt to explain why Dean has such painfully low self-esteem. If it's too much of a stretch for you...there are plenty of other fics to read, eh? :-)

Dean is rusty. He remembers the invitation is in the suggestive jut of his hips, the languid tilt of his head. The too-tight jeans slung too low, and a tank that clings to his chest – the uniform – that helps. But it doesn’t fit like it used to, not the clothes or the attitude. He’s been I’ll-fuck-you-up Dean too long to revert to a fuckable kid.

Tonight, though, Dean doesn’t have any competition. He paid them off hours ago and they want nothing to do with the police anyway. The surveillance van is around the corner, two officers he’s bullied into helping him hiding inside. 

A freezing rain starts to fall, and Dean resists the urge to shiver. Not a seductive move. Dean is beginning to regret bringing the cops into this. “Justice for the victim” sounded nice back at the station, but the longer he thinks about it, the more Dean just wants to cut this man’s dick off and feed it to him. 

_What is taking this asshat so long?_ he wonders as he glares a hole in the bar's door. He can only hope the perv he’s waiting for isn’t too drunk to incriminate himself.

*

Sam raps on the back door of the police van as Jody whispers “Let us in, idiots.”

The two cops inside are dimly lit by a wall monitors. Jody doesn’t wait for them to process their arrival, she just pushes the doors open. 

Sam forces his way in after her. “The Chief said my bro…partner is with you. What the hell is going on?”

“DA didn’t buy the kid’s story,” the shorter cop says. A lit cigarette hangs from his lips, filling the tiny space with an eye-burning haze. “Your partner is hell-bent on getting this guy, figures we can trick him into fessing up, or messing up…”

Sam shoves between the two men, scanning the monitors. He doesn’t see Dean, just a skinny guy slouching against a wall, wearing too-little clothing for a night like this. _Bait,_ he realizes. _An undercover cop._ Another monitor displays the door to a bar, the last shows a dirty alley.

He’s still trying to unravel the situation when the bar's door opens. A man steps into the weak light outside, and this one Sam recognizes. This is Rich, the man who accused Mark of mugging him. He’s a mountain of a man, tall and solidly built, his shoulders stretching the fabric of his suit coat.

Rich looks around. Sam thinks he’ll head back up the street, towards the busier roads. He’s a successful lawyer, he shouldn’t be on this side of town at all, and he definitely shouldn’t be eyeing the undercover cop like meat. 

“Lonely out here?” Rich’s voice crackles through the van, scratchy but clear.

The skinny guy shrugs, a rolling motion of his shoulders that makes his neck look longer. Sam’s lips twist in disgust, even as his forehead puckers. Something about the undercover cop’s slouch is familiar.

Sam can see Rich’s face clearly now, even in the soaking rain, as the man saunters closer to their bait and into the light cast by a street light. He’s licking his lips.

“You working?” Rich asks.

“Gotta eat. Can’t stop just because some stupid kid got picked up.” The guy’s voice is velvet over gravel.

Sam’s mouth is hanging open, working soundlessly. If Dean were here he’d laugh in Sam’s face. But Dean’s not here. He’s slouching against a wall in the rain, trying to seduce a child rapist.

*

Dean starts to wonder if he’s got the stomach for this, how he ever had the stomach for this. The urge to gut the asshole where he stands has Dean reaching for the knife tucked in his boot. He rubs his hands on his thighs to hide the motion. 

“Nervous?” Rich asks. His eyes are raking up and down Dean’s body, catching on his hips, on his lips. 

Dean contorts his disgusted grimace into something like a pout. “Hungry,” he says. Nothing could be further from the truth.

“I’ll bet you are. You’re older than my usuals.” Rich glances around again, which is good because Dean is processing _usuals_ , plural. 

“I like to think of it as experience,” Dean says. He can’t keep the malice out of his voice, but Rich, if anything, only seems more interested. He leans his shoulder on the wall beside Dean.

“I like a bitch with attitude,” Rich says. His grin shows too many teeth. “How much?”

“Fuck or suck?” Dean asks, like _Paper or plastic?_

“Depends. Is your ass as pretty as your mouth?” Rich grabs Dean by his back pocket, and for a fraction of a second, Dean contemplates smashing the man’s nose into his brain, but he lets Rich yank him around and push his face into the wall. 

“Mmm,” Rich says. “Like I said, a bit old for me, but…”

“You know what?” Dean pushes himself off the wall. “I don’t want to play.”

Dean begins to slink away. He’s counting on Rich to follow, to take this from soliciting to something that carries a real sentence. The man thinks he’s gotten away with rape, and Dean suspects it will only make him bolder. So he isn’t surprised when he hears the snarl behind him. He’s only a little surprised at the violence of the attack.

They’re in front of the alley when Rich kicks Dean’s feet out from under him. Dean stays down, but rolls and scrambles backwards into the alley, where the cameras have the clearest view.

“What the hell, man?” Dean asks. Cold water soaks into his jeans, and he does start to shiver now. 

“I don’t care if you want to play or not. I want that ass, that mouth.” Rich is taking his time, enjoying power he thinks he has over Dean.

“You know, I’m a screamer,” Dean says. “Someone will hear.”

“Make all the noise you want.” Rich is standing over Dean now, straddling his hips. He jerks Dean to his feet by his belt, then throws him against the dumpster. Dean goes without resistance, even though every instinct he has is screaming at him, to defend himself, to fight back. He doesn’t want to be a victim, not even in this ruse of his own creation. 

“You’re trash.” Rich spins Dean around, wrenching one arm up behind his back, and Dean hates himself for yelping. He tastes filth before he realizes he’s bent over the dumpster. Rich undoes Dean’s belt, tugging at his jeans. “No one will believe I attacked you.”

_Get to the point,_ Dean thinks. His concentration narrows to just two things: Rich’s monologue and his hand, scrabbling at Dean. 

“That kid that got picked up last night, he didn’t want to play either. I told the cops he attacked me. Now he’s in jail, just one more dumb little fuck who didn’t give me what I wanted.” Rich’s fingernails scrape against Dean’s skin and his tenuous hold on himself disintegrates. 

Dean snaps up off the dumpster, slamming the back of his head into Rich’s nose and wrenching his arm free. He feels his shoulder pop and ignores it, he only needs one hand to kill a man. He kicks Rich in the gut and pulls his knife from his boot in the same motion, then drives the larger man against the wall with a knee in his groin and the knife at his throat.

Dean smiles. There are so many shades of grey in his life, so many difficult choices. This isn’t one of those.

A touch on his bare shoulder, warm fingers like a brand on clammy skin. “Dean. Dee?”


	4. Lost

When Rich kicks Dean’s feet out from under him, Sam sees red. He’s pushing on the van’s door, _going to help his brother_ , so blind with anger that he doesn’t notice Jody pulling on it with her whole weight to keep the door closed.

“What…?” Sam doesn’t understand.

“Dean is perfectly capable of kicking that pervert’s ass at any time, Sam. You know it.”

“I can’t let him do this.”

“He’s protecting Mark. Protecting people, it’s what he does. It’s what _you_ do. And more than that, you have to get yourself under control. Because this…” she gestures at Sam “…this isn’t helping.”

Sam still doesn’t understand. He’s trying his hardest to help Dean, trying to ignore the voice in the back of his head that he’s too late, that he missed his chance to help Dean when he needed it most. “Jody, how…how could I have missed this? The signs were all there.”

Jody blinks at him, then frowns. Her brows are knit. “You were just a kid, Sam.”

“No, I was selfish. I’m so angry, so disgusted with myself.” Sweat beads Sam’s forehead as a new wave of nausea twists his stomach. 

“Well that’s not what it looks like to Dean,” Jody says. “He just sees the disgust.”

And Sam thinks he may be sick then, because now he understands, understands why Dean reacted the way he did back at the station. _Dean thinks I’m disgusted by him._

The sound of Dean hitting the dumpster echoes in the van. Both he and Jody lurch into motion, tumbling out on to the street. They slide around the corner and into the alley just in time to see Dean press his knife to Rich’s neck and smile, a feral snarl that Sam doesn’t recognize on Dean’s face.

“Dean, man…” Sam pleads. Dean doesn’t seem to hear him. 

Sam reaches out, puts his hand on Dean’s shoulder, covering the scars Cas left there.

“Dean. Dee?”

Dean’s face spasms, settles into the wild mask again.

“You got him, man,” Sam says. “He’ll never have another free day on this earth.”

Green eyes flick to Sam and back to Rich. Sam tightens his grip on Dean’s shoulder, until his brother’s face loses its hard edges.

“Let the cops have him,” Sam says, holding up one hand to stop the officers from coming any closer. They’re looking at Dean like he’s rabid. 

Dean’s lip curls and he leans his knee into Rich even harder. “I could eat your heart, raw, and enjoy the taste. But I like the idea of you grabbing your ankles for your cellmates. Prison is not a friendly place for child molesters.”

Dean steps away from Rich, allowing the cops to drag the man away. Jody mutters something about giving them a minute before she disappears. Sam keeps a hand firmly on his brother, until Dean turns and Sam can see that he’s clutching Dean’s visibly dislocated shoulder. 

Sam yanks his hand back, recoiling from Dean, and knows it’s a mistake before the motion is complete. Dean’s face twists again. 

“What do you want from me Sam?” Dean snarls.

“Man your shoulder is dislocated, ok? Just let me…”

“Don’t. Touch me.” Dean digs around in his jeans pocket, hampered by the knife in his hand. His other arm hangs limp, and once again Sam feels sick, sick at the pain he’s causing and the pain he could have prevented.

Dean shoves the keys to the impala into Sam’s hands.

“What…?”

“I don’t know what you want, but that’s all I’ve got,” Dean says, walking away.

Sam hurries to catch up, and his hand is hovering over Dean’s good shoulder when his older brother turns on him. He drives his dislocated shoulder into Sam’s chest with a grunt, shoving him backwards into a light pole. Sam holds his hands out in surrender, _because Dean’s hurting himself more,_ but Dean comes at him with the knife anyway, putting all his weight behind a blow that lands just beneath Sam’s armpit. Dean is already marching off, his rolling gait taking him towards the main streets, before Sam realizes he’s pinned to the pole by the knife through several layers of clothing.

“Dean, wait!”

“I’m not going spend the rest of my life with you looking at me like that, Sam. Don’t follow.

* * *

It takes Dean hours to get back to his hotel. He slips into the crowds milling on a busy downtown street, hops a bus at random, gets off and jumps on another. He loses Sam, and himself. By the time he feels like his trail is safely hidden, he can’t string together a coherent thought.

 _Early stages of hypothermia._ The voice in his head sounds like Dad, still. Dean ignores it.

While Sam and Jody tracked vampires, Dean checked into a hotel. He has chosen a nicer-than-their-usual hotel, the kind that hosts blue-collar corporate conventions for obscure local businesses. The room is in the middle of middle floor, basically the last place Dean would normally stay. So it will either be the last place Sam looks for Dean, or the first. If he looks for Dean. Given the way Sam has been looking _at_ Dean, he’s pretty sure he’ll never see his brother again.

Dean enters the hotel through a distant door and takes the side stairs. He’s dirty, wet and bloody, but nobody sees him. 

 _Lucky. They’d throw you out on your ass._ This voice sounds like Sammy, the snot-nosed kid he used to be. Dean ignores it too. 

Once inside his room, Dean goes straight to the bathroom. He almost regrets that this place is nice, and clean, because he isn’t either of those things. The man looking back at him from the mirror doesn’t belong here. His face is scraped and bruised, his clothes are covered in grime and filth, and his left shoulder is definitely dislocated. Dean has set it by himself before, once, during the dark years when Sam was at Sanford and Dean was alone. It should be easier now, it has been dislocated so many times the tendons feel like over-used rubber bands.

Dean uses his good hand to lift his dangling arm above his head, tucking his limp hand behind his head as if scratching the back of his neck. Pain is a familiar whine in his ears as he holds his elbow, pulling on it to move his hand across his back. He hears the pop of his arm going back into place as his knees buckle. He doesn’t feel himself hit the floor.


	5. Cold

Sam and Jody end up checking all the hotels in town. It’s faster to work them in a grid than try to guess where Dean has holed up. Sam knows they don’t have much time. If he doesn’t find Dean before he leaves town, Sam’s not sure if he’ll ever see his brother again. Dean is the one who can always find Sam, it’s seldom the other way around. It seldom has to be.

The hotel clerk at the Holiday Inn recognizes Dean from Sam’s description. It’s not hard for Sam to get a key, he avoids badge-ing her with a story about a surprise party. She’s too happy to help. Sam texts the address and room number to Jody as he waits for the elevator. 

Sam doesn’t knock, doesn’t want to give Dean time to get defensive, and the lock on the door is easily picked. It opens on an empty room. A trail of wet footprints leads to the bathroom.

The bathroom door is closed, and Sam can hardly barge in on Dean, not tonight of all nights. He settles for knocking softly. As if Dean is a wild animal he doesn’t want to startle.

“Dean?” 

No one answers. Fear grips Sam. He doesn’t pause, doesn’t think, just kicks the door open. 

“Dean!” 

Dean is collapsed against the wall, pale and unmoving. Sam drops to his knees by his brother, puts his hand on his neck. Dean’s skin is so cold it burns against Sam’s fingertips, but his pulse is strong and steady.

“Dean, wake up, man.” Sam shakes his big brother, knuckling his sternum, a paramedic’s trick for bringing someone around. Dean doesn’t respond. His freckles look like splashes of ink on a milk-pale face.

Sam lurches over to the shower and turns it on. He runs the water lukewarm, cold to him, knowing it’ll feel like it’s boiling to Dean. He hooks his brother under his good arm, gets his other hand around Dean’s belt, and backs into the shower, trying not to jostle Dean as he drags him over the edge of the tub. Sam’s Fed shoes slip and he goes down, elbowing Dean in the face, but his brother still doesn’t respond. Sam isn’t really sure how he manages it, but he ends up sitting sideways in the tub with his legs hanging over the edge. Dean is a heap of skin and bones cradled in his arms. 

“Dee. Come on. Wake up.” Sam hitches Dean a little higher on his chest, waits until the water has soaked through their clothes, then turns it a little warmer. 

“Sam?” Jody calls from the main room.

“Jody…” Her face goes nearly as white as Dean’s when she appears in the door.

“Ambulance.” She’s pulling out her phone.

“No! No.” Sam puts his fingers on Dean’s neck, reassures himself with the steady pulse there. “He’d never forgive me for letting anyone see him like this.”

“He’ll never get the chance to forgive us if he dies.” 

“I know. And either way I lose him.” Sam’s voice breaks. He knows he should let Jody call for help, but he can’t risk driving the wedge between them any deeper. “I won’t let him die.”

Jody sinks down onto the lid of the toilet. “I know hun…just…if his pulse even flutters…”

“We’ll call for help,” Sam promises. He turns the water a little warmer. It bounces off Dean’s chest, the splashing spray mingling with the tears rolling down Sam’s face. He’s humming under his breath, a few broken phrases from half a dozen different songs, and he’s rocking himself or Dean or both of them. 

“Dean? Listen man. I just want you back, ok? I just want my brother back,” Sam says, knowing those are the right words and hoping he hasn’t found them too late.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: obviously I have no medical knowledge beyond an hour spent Googling. Forgive any liberties taken for the sake of drama.


	6. Warm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The cheese is strong with this one.

Dean is warm/cold. The cold is deep, close to his bones. The warm…it’s fragile, flickering across his skin. 

Someone is singing, snatches of his favorite songs that he can feel as much as hear, vibrations that echo in Dean’s chest. He thinks he might even be the one singing, before he realizes it must be Sam. Who else would it be?

“Pulse?” A woman’s voice, one Dean knows. 

Fingers on his neck. 

“Steady.” Sam’s voice is over and around Dean. “He’ll wake up, come back. He always comes back. Sometimes it just takes a while.” Sam sniffs.

 _Sometimes it takes years_ , Dean adds silently.

Sam sniffs again, and Dean realizes his little brother must be crying. This bothers Dean, but his arms and legs, his eyelids even, feel weighted. He’s not even sure he’s awake. This drifting has more in common with dreaming than being awake. 

The humming starts again, then stops. Dean feels warmer suddenly, almost too warm.

“I never get…” Sam’s voice is so ragged it hurts. “I never get to do this, to be here for him.”

“Oh Sam. You heard what he told Mark. You’re the one person who is there for him.”

“He doesn’t let me...he has to be unconscious, or dead, before I get to carry him. And he’s been hauling my sorry ass through our whole lives.”

“Yeah, well. That’s Dean.” 

 _Mom-voice is right,_ Dean tells Sam silently. _I don’t know any other way._

“I should have known, Jody,” Sam whispers. “Dad called it Dean’s ‘sullen teenager’ phase…he got so quiet, stopped going to classes, failed out of school. And do you know what I did? I called him dumb.”

Dean doesn’t remember this, or at least, doesn’t remember any one time specifically. They’re brothers. They fight over stupid shit sometimes. Name calling is part of the gig. He wants to tell Sam this, but a shiver shakes him so hard his teeth rattle. It passes, then another follows close on its heels, and another, until he’s shaking continuously. 

“Sam?” Jody asks. Dean feels another hand on his neck.

“Shivering is good,” Sam says. He’s got on hand on the back of Dean’s head, keeping him from braining himself on the wall.

Dean doesn’t know how long the shivering lasts, but when it’s over, he feels limp as an over-cooked noodle. But he’s warm…warm and safe…and in the shower? With his brother? Wait, in his brother’s lap?

 _Eew._ Now Dean isn’t sure if he wants to open his eyes. He might die after all, from embarrassment. 

“Pulse?” Jody asks again.

“Steady,” Sam says. Dean is boneless in his brother’s arms as Sam hoists Dean higher on his chest. 

“Jody, how could I have been so selfish?” Sam asks. He punctuates the question by thunking his head against the tile behind him, hard.

“Sam…”

“Dad, he didn’t know Dean like I did. Sure, he could have prevented it, by being an actual father. But I…I should have known.”

This time Sam slams his head against the tile hard enough to jolt Dean. When Sam tips his head forward again, winding up, Dean manages to flop one arm up around Sam’s shoulder, putting a hand on the back of his little brother’s head. 

“Sssstop it Sssssammy,” Dean slurs.

“Dean? Dean!” Sam shakes him a little, and Dean opens his eyes.

“Who else?” Dean lifts his leaden head off his brother’s chest and glares at Sam. “Quit that.”

Then Dean lets go of Sam and pushes weakly on his brother’s chest. “Lemme go, Sammy. I’m filthy, and…”

“No.” Sam’s arms tighten and Dean’s sore shoulder complains. He ducks his head to hide his grimace, still trying to elbow his way free.

“What, do you need a rape shower too?” Dean asks Sam’s chest. He needs Sammy to let him go, to stop holding him together, before he forgets how to do it for himself.

Sam sniffs. Dean leans as far away from his brother as Sam’s bear hug will allow, and sees that Sam is crying again. Blubbering really, gasping as his mouth works soundlessly. Sam’s sitting in a bathtub in a suit, with his hair plastered to his head and his eyes sunk deep in his skull, and Dean finds doesn’t have the heart to push him away. 

“Ok. Maybe you do need the rape shower,” Dean says, because honestly, the kid looks like he’s the emotionally traumatized one. He shoots a what-the-hell-happened-to-him look at Jody, who just shakes her head. Her eyes are suspiciously bright. 

“That’s not…funny…” Sam gets out. 

“It’s a little funny.” Dean puts his arm around Sam’s shoulder again, does his best to hold his brother as he shakes, tries to let his brother hold him. 

“Sam, I’m fine. You’re fine. We’re fine.”

Sam’s breathing is more regular against Dean. “Exactly none of those statements are true.”

Dean snorts. “Seriously though, man. I’m filthy and…”

“Not to me. You’re my brother, and that’s all that matters.”

“…Sam. I’m covered in actual alley filth.”

“Oh. Right.”

Dean pushes himself off Sam, trying to organize uncooperative limbs into something more like himself. Sam helps, or tries to, but he’s wedged in a space that’s too small for one sasquatch, let alone sasquatch and his slightly littler, big brother.

“Just, put your arm there, and…”

A snicker makes them both look up. Jody is laughing at them, laughing so hard she’s crying. Or maybe she’s laughing to cover her crying. 

“A little help here, Giggles?” Dean asks.

“You look like you’ve got it under control.”

They sort themselves into two more-or-less different people eventually, and eye each other from opposite ends of the tub.

Sam breaks the silence first, as Dean knew hew would. “I’m so sorry Dean. I'm so disgusted _with myself_. I should have seen what was happening…”

“Sam. Stop. Just stop. It’s ok. It’s not your fault…you were a kid and I didn’t want…I don’t…I can’t. I just can’t.” 

Sam looks like a puppy who’s been left out in the rain, misery in every line of his too-long body. Dean glances at Jody, who is staring at her hands. She’s still crying, but she makes a valiant effort to pretend she isn’t when she meets Dean’s eyes. 

“Did they get him? Was it enough?” Dean asks her.

“Yeah hun, they did. When he saw the recordings, he folded. Told us every dirty detail, every terrible secret.” 

“Good. Now both of you, out. I really, really need a shower.”

Sam stumbles out of the tub, then helps Dean get to his feet. Then he just stands in the middle of the bathroom, with round eyes, looking lost. Jody tugs at his sleeve, but Sam doesn’t move. His mouth is working, but he can’t seem to come up with anything to say, and frankly, Dean doesn’t really want to hear it anyway. 

“Sam. Go get your stuff. Change into dry clothes. Find us some pizza. Find me a lot of alcohol.”

It’s an old trick, give Sammy a job to keep him busy, but it works. He nods more confidently after each order, his face filling with purpose. He even manages a disapproving frown at the mention of alcohol. This is good, Dean can handle disapproval. It’s much better than pity or disgust. 

Sam turns to go, but stops with his hand on the doorknob. 

“Dean?”

“We’re fine, Sam. I’m fine.” Dean is leaning on the tile, all he really feels now is tired. 

“You can’t be fine. You’re never fine.”

“Then I’m exactly as not-fine as usual.”

This startles a laugh out of Sam, who finally leaves with a hint of a smile on his face.


	7. Epilogue

It takes Sam hours to stop looking at Dean like he might break at any moment. For his part, Dean blatantly ignores his brother’s concern. He eats half a pizza, drinks half a handle of whiskey and falls asleep on top of his bed with bare feet. Sam wouldn’t have let that go, Dean nearly succumbed to hypothermia just a few hours ago, but Jody beats Sam to it and drags an extra blanket over Dean before she leaves them. She ignores his grumbles like the experienced mom she is. 

Days pass before Sam realizes his brother is the same person he always was. It’s just Sam’s understanding of how Dean became that person which has changed. Dean is as patient as he can be while Sam figures this out. When Sam finds himself ducking punches, he remembers that Dean has never been particularly patient.

Months later, when they are driving away from a successful hunt, and Dean is driving a little too fast and singing way too loud, eating an enormous burger one-handed and chewing with his mouth open, that’s when Sam realizes they really are fine. 

“Dude. You’re getting food all over the car.” Sam says to Dean.

“Am not. Shut your mouth.”

“Be better if you did.” 

“Yeah, well, it would be better if you…did.”

Sam laughs at his brother, realizing even as he does that this is part of the game, has probably always been part of the game. He sounds annoyed, but Dean counts it as a win any time he gets Sam to loosen up, to laugh. Especially when laughs have been in short supply. 

“Shud-uhp.” Dean drawls without any really animosity. 

And Sam knows that they are fine, that Dean is fine. Or at least, exactly as not-fine as usual. And that’s enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there it is! Short and sweet and a little dark. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!


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